Winters Key
by Stanton Nightshade
Summary: The Gundam pilots must save the earth from a second ice age! And this time they're not fighting OZ, they're up against a 10' eight headed god with an attitude!


Disclaimer : I don't own any of the characters, but he stories mine so there :P  
  
Stanton: Hey everyone! This is my first gundam fanfic! So I hope everyone likes it!  
  
Tori: Am I in it? Do I get to drive a gundam and defeat evil bad guys, save the world, and still have time to eat pocky?  
  
All:…  
  
Stanton: Not really, this one is about the pilots saving earth from a second ice age.  
  
Ke: Hey, that's a good idea, did your muse come up with that for you, cause if he did, I better start thinking, I don't want tori to fall behind.  
  
Aile: I doubt it, Stanton just had a lot of sugar today and started jumping up and down, and he fell down the stairs and hit his head on the banister, so I think this was a one-time thing.  
  
Tori: Maybe I should try that? *Pulls staircase out of pocket and falls down*  
  
All: *stare at unconscious tori.  
  
Stanton: Oh well, I hope you enjoy. IM tired, so here's the first part and Ill put part two up as soon as I can.  
  
AC 197- Two years has past since the end of the war, and one year since Mariemaia Kushrenada's plan to destroy the Earth Sphere Unified Nation. Not long after, the earth itself was entering another ice age! Bewildered, scientists try without success to discover the reason. Rumors have spread throughout the colonies that some unknown military group has somehow gained control of the earth's weather and plan to destroy all life on earth before they take over. Yet there are some who doubt, mainly old men and women who still believe in magic and the old beliefs. They speak of a coming of ice and snow and that only one man could stop it all, one with the will to sacrifice all and save all…  
  
* * *  
  
Thick flakes of snow flew on biting winds as the six gundam pilots made their way through the icy streets of San Francisco. They had just returned from a Christmas party at Relena Darlian's Victorian mansion. They party had been okay, and they were glad to see the faces of old friends. Everything was going good until Wufei and Sally got into a fight on why women were/weren't the inferior gender in a supposed male dominated society.  
  
So, they left with a sigh of relief and headed to their new home. They had been living in San Francisco for six months now. After the fighting had officially ended, they lived at the Winner estate, but soon decided not to live on the charity of others, and came to earth to set up a new life.  
  
* * *  
  
Now, Heero Yuy works by day as computer engineer at a thriving young company, while at night trains and scans the Internet for signs of anything involving uprisings of malicious vile corporations trying to gain world (and colonial) domination. He and Relena are currently seeing each other (after many hours of convincing by Relena).  
  
Duo works part time at a pizzeria, and part time as a basketball coach at the nearby high school. By night, he still annoys Heero. He also is currently engaged to Duet Maxine, his closest friend as a child at the Maxwell Church, and later on, partner in battle.  
  
Duet teaches (believe it or not) Anger Management class at a local health club. She still joins Duo on playing pranks on Heero, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei. She also started an Animé Lovers Heaven store near China town, where the locals can find all there animé desires.  
  
Trowa is still in the circus, and has become partners in business with Catherine in opening their own Circus. He has recently decided with the encouragement of Quatre, to find out who he really is. He and Quatre are still together.  
  
Quatre owns the health club that Duet works at, and still promotes world peace. He recently won an award on his book, "Why can't we all get along?" a descriptive account of his part in the war. The Magunacs work as full time masseuses.  
  
And finally, Wufei. He has more or less come around from his life is war, and war is life motto. He too has written may books, but on the dominance of men over women through the ages, and why women's rights was a waste of time and money. This was not well received among the female public, and received many letters of a profane and degrading nature.  
  
* * *  
  
As they came up the walk to their four-bedroom apartment, Duet spied a pile of rags on the front step. She went up to it and tried to kick it out of the way, but her foot connected with something soft. Heero rolled the bundle over to find it was a man, a dead man. His skin was cold, and he wasn't breathing.  
  
Heero look inside his "jacket" for some ID, but all he found was an old leather book and a crystal object that looked like a key. Just then, a cop came by to collect dead homeless people. Because so many were freezing to death, that was now one of their duties, collect road kill, collect dead people, so were the days of a cop.  
  
"Hey, we've got a body over here", Wufei shouted to the cop, while the rest moved out of the way.  
  
"OK, put him in the cart. Come on, I don't got all night." Chided the cop. So Trowa picked up the corpse, and placed among the many others all ready piled up. No one mentioned the book or the key to the cop. As soon as he was out of sight, they went in, made some coffee, and sat around the kitchen table looking at what they had found.  
  
"Well, read what it says." Duo said, as Quatre opened up the leather bound book. It was black with gilded pages. The paper was very old, and the writing was alien looking. The only thing recognizable was the writing on the first page. It appeared to be ancient Arabic.  
  
"Lets see, I can't tell what language the rest of the book is written in, but I think the first bit is in some form of Arabic. It says:  
  
A winter's sleep shall descend,  
  
And destroy the affairs of mortal men;  
  
Icy breath shall rattle thy bones,  
  
And leave thee forgotten like dusty tomes.*  
  
The key of water, the key of ice,  
  
Only it can stop winters vice;  
  
In the temple of Gods;  
  
Where mortals have died;  
  
Likes sand in the wind,  
  
So goes thy life.  
  
"Yeah, and that would mean what?" Questioned Duo who had been lost aster the first sentence. "I guess they like winter a lot huh?"  
  
"No, can't you see? It's talking about the coming of doom! 'And destroy the affairs of mortal men', that sounds like the coming winter will destroy the world, leaving nothing to remember us." Claimed Duet, who was a bit quicker than her fiancé.  
  
"Yeah, and it looks like it tells what can stop it, 'The key of water, the key of ice', hey Heero where's that crystal thing? Wufei inquired. Heero put the object in the middle of the table where its facets glittered in the electric light. "You know, that does look an awful lot like a key. This sounds like a prophecy to me, and as a man of honor, I will take up this mission to save the earth!"  
  
"Calm down there, we don't even know what to do yet", said Trowa logically, "We need to see if we can find anything else we can use as clues. Quatre skim the book for anything else we can use."  
  
"Sounds like a plan", Quatre responded as he flipped carefully through the pages of delicate yet foreign writing. Suddenly he paused. "Guys! Look, I think this is a map! It looks familiar, but all the names are in that curly writing."  
  
"Wait a second, I've got an idea." Heero jumped up quickly, and ran into his room. He came back a few seconds later with his laptop and a scanner. "We can scan the writing into my computer, and I can use a decoding program to decipher what it says.  
  
So, they pilots sat around the laptop, waiting anxiously as the page was scanned in, and the program set to work. First I searched through all the known languages, then crossing them etc…  
  
Four hours later the laptop beeped, startling the sleeping forms. Duo and Duet had curled up on the couch, and Quatre and Trowa were on the floor by the fireplace. Wufei had fallen asleep while polishing his katana. Only Heero had stayed awake. His eyes focused on the liquid crystal screen.  
  
"It's found something," he stated quietly. They stirred, and gathered behind him, staring intently at what the computer was writing on the screen. It brought up the map, but this time, instead of the curls, there was English. It read: The Isle of Snow and Ice.  
  
Other places were labeled as well. Ice Flow, a river running into the western coast of an ironically volcanic island. The volcano itself was the main part of the island, with little ones ringing it. Temple of Fire and Ice was at the mouth of the volcano, and way to the south was a little structure called Hail Shrine.  
  
A light went on in Heero's head. "I know where that is, I flew over it once in Wing Zero, but I never went by it again and it slipped my mind. The top of the volcano was covered in snow, but there was a faint trail of smoke coming out of its ominous depths."  
  
They all sat quietly, thinking what this meant… Obviously they had to check it out. They decided that it would be best to find out more, so they spent the rest of the night tediously scanning every page of the book until they had the entire thing translated.  
  
Duo volunteered to read for them, but he fell asleep after the first page, and Trowa took over for him while Duet dragged him off to their room.  
  
* * *  
  
The next morning, they all came together groggily in the living room. No one said anything until Quatre had made pancakes and bacon and they had all eaten. Then they went back to the living room, sat down and glared at the book that had cost them their good nights sleep.  
  
"We have to save the world from a coming ice age that will cover the earth and freeze the oceans, and to do it, we supposedly have to kill Terfin Brae, Allfonian god of winter. Who also is ten feet tall, has eight heads, breaths fire, and if he touches you, you turn to ice. That's basically what the book said." That sat there with their mouths hanging open as Trowa finished.  
  
"Okaaayy, so what do we do now? 


End file.
